This stuff is stupid expensive and makes some weird claims about being vegan despite containing animal products. Nevertheless, the pea protein lowers the bio-availability significantly.

What does this mean? I could eat wagyuu beef (known for its taste and hefty price tag) for roughly the same cost and it would be a better value because more protein gets absorbed from beef than Shakeology.

Tonight’s Leathermen’s mentorship kickoff went pretty good. The entire process is so overwhelmingly regimented it could only have been devised by the most meticulously sadistic of Doms.

I interviewed three folks, two were very clearly not matches, the third was a very strong match (for me). Hoping he ends up as my mentor. High technical skill, an experienced switch, and prominent figure in the leather community who could connect me with more volunteer work.

While preparing for the interviews, tried doodling a visualization of my kinks. Sort of like @foxbear’s “the menu.”

The XY chart graphs my fetishes vertically by experience, and horizontally by how common that fetish is. Very few that I haven’t explored, but still lots of room for growth.

The radar chart was my attempt at visualizing my sexuality; top, bottom, Dom, sub, masculine, feminine. I tend to be everything. This chart only created more questions and was abandoned in the interview process.

Originally posted 2016-01-21 09:05:35

taric25 asks:

My brother and I lift together, and his biggest complaint about the protein supplements that he used to take is that it felt like more work trying to eat protein, through shakes or bars, than his actual workout. I felt the same, to a lesser degree, until I discovered isopure, in the glass bottle. I mix it a fruit punch flavor of beef protein isolate, which he tried and loved. "It's like drinking a Gatorade, very refreshing!" What are your thoughts and recommendations?

Here we have that same chart I made yesterday, but now the bubbles are colour-coded and sized based on my tasting notes. The smaller and more green the bubble, the worse it tastes. The bigger and more blue the bubble, the better it tastes.

Hey there! Wanted to ask you a quick question in regards to body building / protein powder. My goal (this is Dylan typing) is to get bigger/beefier. I've tried regular whey protein and beef protein powder, and I was curious which you think works better...

What protein works better?

Let’s define “better” as protein that best helps us achieve the goal of gaining muscle mass. We want to get as much protein into our bodies as possible, so we’ll need a protein with high bio-availability that is cheap enough to eat a lot of it.

What's it like working in San Francisco? Do you think it's a hard market to penetrate? (PS Also big fan! Very interesting stuff, your life is completely different and it's so fascinating to explore it.)

I have been working in San Francisco for 9 years. My career has spanned Fortune 500 companies, design agencies, startups, and non-profits. I have held very senior (lead, director, and above) roles at every single company I’ve worked for while living in San Francisco.

I have (mostly) enjoyed working in this city, but my career path is not typical, so my personal perspective isn’t really helpful for someone trying to move here.

As an ethnic minority, I really enjoy working in a city as diverse as San Francisco. It means I’m less likely to be discriminated against because of the colour of my skin, and the diversity leads to more creative companies (Source: Forbes).

San Francisco has the lowest unemployment rate of America’s Global Class cities. What does this mean? If you’re living here, there’s a really good chance you’ve got a job.

Thats good news…but, only if you can live here.

San Francisco is the most expensive place to rent in America. The chart above is a little out of date as the average rent for a studio apartment is now $4,000/mo. For some context, if you make $100,000 per year, a studio in San Francisco would eat up 100% of your post-tax salary.

HUD estimates you need to make $200,000 per year to live “comfortably” in San Francisco. Meaning, you need to be the top 2%.

I wouldn’t be able to live here if I didn’t move here during the financial crisis of 2004-2007, back when things were affordable.

1-in-3 homeless people identify as LGBTQ. We have all these gay kids moving here, thinking SF is some gay paradise that they can break into a new life, but its actually very hard to make it here.

Its hard to start a new life in San Francisco

The Bad: poop everywhere, high cost of living, the highest rent, limited space, high demand, and extremely competitive.

The Good: low unemployment, lots of diversity

It is possible to make it here, but I generally don’t advise people to start here. We have a very high churn rate; many people who can’t make it move to LA (pretending it was their plan all along) or join our fast growing homeless population.

Instead, I recommend people look into some of the upcoming Beta or Gamma tier cities like Portland, Austin, or Boston…or even an Alpha++ city like New York, where its actually cheaper than San Francisco but with significantly better infrastructure and benefits. (SF is considered an Alpha- city).

It might break, I just threw it together tonight lazily. If people like it I’ll finish it.

Originally posted 2015-11-20 08:01:43

Anonymous asks:

Do you ever feel that people will get the impression that you're a little too perfect or an acquired taste, also being more of a muscle bear then a regular bear are you still accepting of others when you go to Province town or do you stick to just the muscle bears, cause your clan harem roost they are all muscle bears it seems.

Too Perfect

The photo above was taken last year in New York. Light is diffused perfectly to minimize pores and bounced off a white screen to provide perfect contrast. It is, in my opinion, a perfect photo. From a technical standpoint, one of the best portraits of me ever. Period.

An Acquired Taste

Despite some focus issues, poor contrast, and high ISO noise, this is one of my favourite photos of me ever taken.

It is flawed and I love it.

Being too perfect VS being an acquired taste

The above chart was generated using data from my flickr account. “Interestingness” is flickr’s way of calculating popularity. As you can see, both photos have similar scores, but the distribution of ratings is very different. On the left you have consensus (its perfect), on the right you have split opinion (its an acquired taste).

To put it simply:

The left photo is, in an absolute sense, considered better.

The right photo was given the lowest score >150% more often.

Nevertheless, the right photo is 12-times more popular.

The more people disagree about how I look in a photo, the more popular a photo is. If someone doesn’t like one of my photos, the next best thing is for them to HATE it. In fact, the kiss of death for a photo is if everyone agrees its good.

Madness.

The more people disagree about how I look in a photo, the more popular a photo is

Sticking my tongue out in photos is a point of contention among my readers. Some people think its sexy, other people HATE it. Consistent with my previous Perfect-VS-Acquired-Taste example, photos with my tongue out are more popular than any other expression.

This phenomenon is not unique to my selfies. The psychology of controversy explains how deviance of opinion can make things more popular because of how passionately people hold their values.

When the local sports team wins a game, people might be thrilled, but everyone agrees the victory was wonderful, and so there is little to spur continued discussion. […] But, some topics generate controversy. The topic generates passion, but people differ in their opinions. In this case, there is ample room for continued conversation. The more controversial the topic, the more discussion it generates.

Highly recommended read. My data sample is just 4,000 photos, they’re working with a dataset 100-times larger, and they make this brilliant observation:

It’s hard to change your overall attractiveness (the big single number we were talking about at the beginning). However, the variance you create is under your control, and it’s simple to maximize:

Take whatever you think some guys don’t like—and play it up.

As you’ve probably already noticed, women with tattoos and piercings seem to have an intuitive grasp of this principle. They show off what makes them different, and who cares if some people don’t like it. And they get lots of attention from men.

We now have mathematical evidence that minimizing your “flaws” is the opposite of what you should do. If you’re a little chubby, play it up. If you have a big nose, play it up. If you have a weird snaggletooth, play it up: statistically, the guys who don’t like it can only help you, and the ones who do like it will be all the more excited.

This is so metal, you guys.

Do you ever feel that people will get the impression that you’re a little too perfect or an acquired taste?

This is a weird question, but, yes, I know for a fact that some people love me and others hate me. Before I ran the numbers, these detracting opinions bothered me, but without them I wouldn’t be popular in the first place.

The chart above shows average number of sexual partners for non-monogamous survey responses. (Meaning, folks who didn’t have just one sexual partner in a six month period). Its ordered by least sexually active group to most.

What is surprising is the addition of a new clique, “Pig.” While I have a lot of data on people who identify as pig, the body type varies so greatly that they have not appeared on the live infographic. The only defining constant for pigs is how sexual they are, with the most sexual partners in 30 days of any group.

The chart above shows average number of sexual partners for non-monogamous survey responses. (Meaning, folks who didn’t have just one sexual partner in a six month period). Its ordered by least sexually active group to most.

What is surprising is the addition of a new clique, “Pig." While I have a lot of data on people who identify as pig, the body type varies so greatly that they have not appeared on the live infographic. The only defining constant for pigs is how sexual they are, with the most sexual partners in 30 days of any group.

And good news for smooth guys and the extremely hairy: you get lots of sexual partners for your hirsutism (or lack thereof). But if you’re average, you get laid less.

Next steps: using this information to help target sexual health PSAs better.

Originally posted 2014-08-28 05:18:49

Anonymous asks:

I have an analytics question for you. The primary topic of your blog seems to change based on different phases of your life. There have been periods focusing on lifting, creating the calendar, dieting, traveling, S&M and now your poly relationship. How have your readers responded to each topic (page views, visitors, time spent per visit, etc)? Which was the most/least popular?

To answer this question, I’ll be reviewing data from February 1st, 2013 to February 28th 2014. I broke my analytics code in January, so there is some data missing (see the big dip in January). Because my traffic has been growing so quickly, its hard to weigh “popular” types of posts outside of a one-year period.

Total unique visitors during this period:24.3 million (noodlesandbeef.com only)

Top visited pages (33% of all traffic):

noodlesandbeef.comThis is not surprising. Its my homepage. 60% of visitors are return readers, they check my homepage for updates.

I have an analytics question for you. The primary topic of your blog seems to change based on different phases of your life. There have been periods focusing on lifting, creating the calendar, dieting, traveling, S&M and now your poly relationship. How have your readers responded to each topic (page views, visitors, time spent per visit, etc)? Which was the most/least popular?

To answer this question, I’ll be reviewing data from February 1st, 2013 to February 28th 2014. I broke my analytics code in January, so there is some data missing (see the big dip in January). Because my traffic has been growing so quickly, its hard to weigh “popular” types of posts outside of a one-year period.

Total unique visitors during this period:24.3 million (noodlesandbeef.com only)

Top visited pages (33% of all traffic):

noodlesandbeef.comThis is not surprising. Its my homepage. 60% of visitors are return readers, they check my homepage for updates.